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4 • The Red and Black • Thursday. July 20, 19«y
OPINIONS
The Red & Mack
EitabhiHed 1893—Incorporated 1980
An independent ttudenl newt paper not affiliated with the University of Georgia
Jeff Wohl/Editor-in-Chief
Robert Todd/Managing Editor
EDITORIALS
Slicin’ the pie
Last week the Board of Regents’ Planning and
Oversight Committee recommended that two regional
universities be created to serve the needs of south
Georgia. The plan approved would establish Georgia
Southern College as Georgia Southern University by
July ’90 and would grant university status to Valdosta
State College by July ’92.
The plan is still pending the approval of the full
board in September.
As the flagship institution for the state, the
University should be concerned about continuing to
receive sufficient funding from the state legislature.
Nicholas Henry, GSC president, said the new
schools shouldn’t come at the expense of the
established universities. Estimates for elevating the
status of Georgia Southern are $12 million above and
beyond what the university schools are already
receiving.
We agree with Henry but, this money will have to
come from somewhere. Funding for the forestry
addition was put on hold for 20 years before being
passed. Future capital projects like a Russell Hall
parking deck or a new academic complex might have
similar waits as more schools draw on state funding.
Regional universities are needed. People raised in
the area generally go away for their education, not to
return with their new knowledge. People with ties to an
area are those most likely to help that area prosper. If
they are kept within the state for a university
education, then the ‘brain drain’ may be reduced.
Auburn and Florida State universities and the
University of Florida have substantial numbers of
Georgians in their ranks. It is hoped that they will feel
the impact of the new schools rather than Georgia
State, Georgia Institute of Technolgy and the
University.
While the existing state funding isn’t
inexhaustable, it can be supplimented through creative
measures. A state lottery, horse racing, jai-lai are all
avenues that have yet to be explored seriously by our
elected officials. The idea behind the new schools is
sound and there is a need to be filled, but how it is
accomplished will be the question taxpayers and
students await to have answered.
A look back
Visions for the future enabled Neil Armstrong to set
foot on the moon twenty years ago today. Since cave
people opened looked up, the moon has served as a
reminder of what may be dreamed. Until this century,
little real progress was made towards achieving that
dream.
In 1961, then-President John Kennedy set forth as
a goal to send a man to the moon and return him safely
to earth before the end of the decade. Under President
Richard Nixon that goal became reality.
Since that drive, the United States space program
has had successes in the Apollo-Soyuz mission and the
operation of the space shuttle and failure in the
Challenger tragedy. But a welcomed by-product of the
space program is the accompanying technology.
Computers, space-age polymers are all results of
the space quest of the ’60s and ’70s. Today, President
Bush is expected to set forth his goal for the country’s
spaceprogram, a manned outpost on the moon and
sending astronauts to Mars. While it is said that one’s
reach should exceed one’s grasp, we hope Bush’s plans
are achievable.
With a renewed focus of effort, the entire nation
may benefit.
L
STAFF
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QUOTABLE
Any new university in Georgia should not come at the expense
of the established universities' —
Nicholas Henry, president of Georgia Southern College.
speaking about the recommendation of regional universities.
Mw !1
IT MUST BE THEE.-2 STEALTH E-OMfeEK, SIR!
Religion necessary for cultural diversity
A student recently related the following inci
dent. His professor advocated that future tea
chers not let parents know what values they
were teaching their children. When the dis
cussion turned to the possibility of presenting
Judeo-Christian values to their students, the
professor rejected the idea, called those values
narrow, and then justified the rejection of
Judeo-Christian values on the basis of the sepa
ration of church and state.
Is a society where religion and values cannot
be discussed the only wav to ensure the separa
tion of church and state? Many would choose a
secular state as a simple answer to a complex
issue. What would be the potential conse
quences to a society that forced faith and reli
gion and thereby moral issues into the totally
private sector? Recent studies of the media in
dicate a censorship of religion from the depic
tion of everyday life; likewise, textbooks are
increasingly showing an exclusion of religious
events from history. At • recent gathering of
college presidents, an Ivy League president
urged a return to the teaching of morals and
ethics. The response was, “Whose morals?” The
David
Johnson
audience applauded and the issue was not dis
cussed furtner.
As Americans we have often prided ourselves
on our freedom of speech and on our pluralistic
society. The emphasis is now on pluralism.
What people mean by pluralism is that there is
no normative truth; all opinions about right
and wrong are to be accepted equally. This shift
is leading us to be a people governed only by
statutory law with no moral cocensus and no
moral appeal above the law. Instead of asking
is something right or good we ask only is it
legal. Laws ultimately lose their legitimacy if
they don’t have a moral base. They merely be
come the rules of whomever has the power.
The more we remove the religious voices
from our society, the more we move to arbitrary
or capricious laws and eventually to totalitaria
nism. Do we want a state ruled by religion? No,
but nor do we want religion ruled or silenced by
the state. Each has its own role and function in
a free society.
What do we see at the University of Georgia?
A university community is supposed to be a
place where diverse ideas are encouraged. How
many of us have had classes with professors
who disdain the spiritual or supernatural? Why
the attempt to silence and sometimes intim
idate rather than to enter in dialogue with
those who have opposing worldviews? Isn’t the
current lack of moral direction and vacu-
ousness of public debate a reflection of the cur
rent university scene? Are the end products of
our educational process "educated barbarians”
as another president of an Ivy Lengue school re
ferred to his graduates?
David M Johnson is from the Worldwide Disci-
pleship Association.
The beginning of the French Revolution
I woke up on the morning of July 14, 1789
with a sense of foreboding; a sense that some
thing "merveilleux” was to happen. As I
dragged my body, worn from rioting, out of bed
and into the streets of Paris, I wandered into
the French Revolution.
A severe feeling of nationalism had been
with me and my comrades for weeks now.
It was a passion burning inside of us that
was to explode later that day
As we marched towards the Invalides, a
weapon depot across from the Seine river, we
joined a growing mob of rioters and stormed the
building. Wanting to acquire needed weapns, I
searched the vast interior corridors, finding a
musket to my liking, as did my comrades, Jean-
Pierre and Philip.
We headed towards the Bastille next in
search of precious ammunition to feed our
guns.
During the mile-long trip from the Invalides
to the Bastille my comrades and I talked of our
hatred for the king, Louis XVI, and his igno
rance in not supporting the newly formed Na
tional Assembly. We also questioned his crass
Andrew
Schindewolf
decision to bring in troops to fight against hiL
own people.
We made the trip in under 15 minutes and
soon joined the National Guardsmen in the
fight to overthrow the fortress of the Bastille.
As bullets danced around our heads and
bodies fell everywhere, my passion and devo
tion for France mounted inside ns a fever.
Groups of young men and women were scur
rying about trying to free Frenchmen from the
blood-stained grasp of Louis XVI.
Cannon fire assaulted our ears while the
pungent odor of sulfur ravished the insides of
our noses.
“Mon Dieu!" I wondered to myself, “Is this
really happening?"
After what setmud like days, a few men
emerged victorimii from the inside of the Bas
tille with a few freed prisoners and their most
cherished prize; the decapitated head of the
n thi Bastille impalsd on a pik»>
As I jumped up and down to gain a glimpse of
the battle-token, I saw Jean Pierre bleeding on
the fp'ound impaled with a bayonet.
With D - >>f sorrow mixing with those of joy,
I started to chant with the hundreds of others ...
"Liberte, egalits, fj»t*-mite!"
On July 14, fHB, France celebrated its bi
centennial with a huge party in Paris commem
orating the storming of the Bastille and the
French Revolution It was with the strength of
their convictions and love of their country that
my forefathers succeeded in overcoming the op-
ressive rule of Louis XVI Being half French, I
eel special pride in the accomplishments of my
ancestors 200 years ago. "Vive la France!"
Andrew Schindewolf is a contributing writer for
the Red and Black
Thorton can’t speak for majority of Americans
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Reprints by permission of the editors
I must question Mr. Thornton’s
(R&B, 7-6-89) ability to speak for
the majority of American tax
payers. 1 don't know him, but I’m
going to assume he is young
enough to be of traditional college
age. When he has paid taxes and
supported a family of his own for
20 years, perhaps I’ll be able to
take such remarks seriously
I find it incomprehensible that
he would consider it good financial
sense to refuse to pay for safe, legal
abortions, but he wouldn’t mind
spending tax dollars on all of the
eventual consequences of such re
fusal. Sooner or later, he’s going to
have to come to grips with the fact
that he will be paying for the pre
natal care and delivery, and likely
the continued medical care and fi
nancial support for children born
to the poverty-stricken women who
could not obtain financial assis
tance for a legal abortion.
Let’s talk about the women who
will be most severly hurt by this
ruling, should Georgia enact legis
lation to restrict access to abortion.
Women of means will always have
a way to obtain an abortion. I re
member when rich women went to
clinics in Switzerland and Mexico;
poor women had to seek more dan
gerous alternatives We can take it
for granted, then, thnt the poor
(and poverty statistics indicate
moat likely Black) will be the most
devastated by this ruling.
fin
S
These
women, because of their financial
status and resulting inadequate
nutrition, will be more likely to de
liver premature infants. Neo-natal
intensive care usually costs about
$6,000 per day. After paying for
the child’s delivery and subsequent
health care, it’s likely that tax
pavers will have to foot the bill for
subsistence-level support for both
mother and child, at least until the
child is in school and the mother
can then aflord to work — pro
vided, of course, that she has no
more children thereafter. At no
less than $3,000 per year, child
care is a tremendous extravagance
to a poverty-level mother, so she
will be unable to earn a living until
her youngest child reaches school
age.
Of course, Mr. Thornton could
respond that the mother doesn’t
have to keep the child, and adop
tion is always a good alternative.
Very well, if the child is Caucasian
and perfectly healthy, adoptive
parents will be lined up and ready
to pay whatever it takes to make
that child their own. But most of
the unwanted white babies in this
discussion were aborted, and those
remaining are Black (and quite
possibly, after a premature de
livery, handicapped). These chil
dren aren’t very marketable; it’s
difficult to find someone who wants
FORUM
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person to The Red and Black s offices at 123 N. Jackon St.. Athens, Ga.
them and is capable of dealing with
all of the complex problems that
are likely to follow tnem in the fu
ture. Therefore, these unaborted
babies are still likely to be sup
ported by the state in institutions
or foster homes.
No one likes the idea of abortion.
People who are pro-choice are not
necessarily pro-abortion; they do
believe, however, that when a
woman sees no alternative, she
should be entitled to the care she
determines is best for her I find it
alarming that women’s lives are in
the hands of men again, something
I thought went out with the 60’s.
The Missouri legislature is made
up mostly of men, as is the Su
preme Court. I shudder to think
what the men in power in Georgia
will do, now. Witn men exercising
control over women’s reproductive
health, I wonder how many of them
will want to finance expanded sex
education programs and readily
available contraception for young
people Face facts, Mr Thronton, if
the American taxpayer doesn’t
want to pay for abortions, does he
indeed want to pay for supporting
enormous numbers of dependant
women and children? And is he
willing to provide birth control de
vices and information to high
school age boys and girls?
I can’t help envisioning America
in the future as a place burdened
by a teeming population of hungry,
under-educated people. If that
prospect suits Mr. Thornton,
maybe he should try spending a
month with Mother Theresa in
India, the Peace Corps in Mexico,
or make a food drop in Ethiopia.
Without concerted effort to en
hance the quality of life in this
country, well be in the same cat
egory in one or two generations.
Bringing more poor children into
the world will not help us.
Kathryn E. Cooper
senior, Consumer Economics